There's a better word for what I am: an apatheist.
It's a neologism that fuses "apathy" and "theism." It means someone who has absolutely no interest in the question of a god's (or gods') existence, and is just as uninterested in telling anyone else what to believe.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

I wrote an earlier post about the multilateral talks regarding Iraq, and while I said I wasn't optomistic, I felt this was the only answer that might (maybe have a chance) work. All the other options will be failures. So leave it to Shrubs people to screw up basic diplomacy:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070311/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_conference

Reza Amiri, a senior official at the Iranian Foreign Ministry, dismissed American claims that Tehran was destabilizing Iraq by arming Shiite militias.The U.S. military has insisted that Iranian weapons, including a new generation of powerful roadsidebombs, have killed more than 170 U.S. and coalition troops here since mid-2004. "They're lying because it is just not true," Amiri told the AP. "Iraq's borders with Iran are the most secure of Iraqi borders. The Iraqi government has not even once said Iran is interfering in its affairs."

Today is OBL's 50th birthday, which is at least 5 more birthdays that he would have seen if we had a competent president. Thanks to Shrub's Iraq fixation we gave up on Bin Laden, the person who actually attacked us. While it is unclear whether Osama is actually still leading Al Queda, his ability to inspire jihadi's remains unchecked. If you read Bin Laden's fatwas (especially in the original Arabic), he clearly states his plan to destroy America by slowly bleeding us to death. By invading Iraq, Bush has played into his plans perfectly. I find myself outraged that he is still alive to see this day, while our troops are getting killed in a country where he isn't.

Friday, March 9, 2007

Wierd day. Somebody that used to be my boss, years ago, in another context, is now a new guy, in a current context. i have to show him how to do stuff. A bit daunting, indeed,-to train a fella whose wisdom, in both contextuals, fairly supercedes my own. It's like... i asked him for guidance in that other context, -today he asked me for instruction in this current context. Yep. Contextual synchronous occurances, that is.; current ones,,, Methinks i find this to be the sort of thing ; metaphysical enigma, if you will, to make one raise his proverbial eyebrow, eh? As to what context shall insue, i dunno. In my humble opinion, God is synchronous occurences , superceding all context. If God exists, and he probably doesn't, It's probably wasted on Xanax- a constant new guy, in OUR context, flowing through all the answers to all our superfluous endeavors, but nothing left in the bag.

I say that March 30, 2007, is National Buy Dick Cheney a Cheeseburger Day.That's a Friday. We all should be in a festive mood. We should all be thinkingof happier days, before the world hated us, before we were wasting (yes, I dareuse that word) American lives in Iraq to prove Dick's personal infallibility andmake his fantasy world view into reality. Let's dig in to a good old Americancheesburger and send Dick Cheney thereceipt.

I say we rub it in.

And if not rub it in,encourage this bastard to indulge. That's right, Dick, feed feed that fatfucking face of yours. Chow down. Every ounce of 80/20 ground chuck you downgets us a few platelets closer to a true national holiday, the day your fuckingworthless, fascist, racist, corrupt, death-dealing, loathsome, lying purely evilsoul slips the surly bounds of your face and boards the 2/3 Express straight forfucking hell.

Jumpin' Jesus on a pogo stick, but I'm back. DELL finally got the replacement laptop to me this morning, but it's been such a clusterfuck today that I just now swapped hard drives and booted the sucker up. So far, we've been up for 11 minutes and some change, and zee monitor, she is still going.

Unfortunately, duty calls and I must return to my humble job of systems administrator. But wherever something is awry, whenever the Bush administration fucks up, whenever there needs a comment or post about truth, justice, and the American way, know for certain you can count on a snarky post from SweaterMan!

WASHINGTON - The FBI improperlyand, in some cases, illegally used the USA Patriot Act to secretly obtainpersonal information about people in the United States, a Justice Departmentaudit concluded Friday.

The war in Iraq isn't over yet, but -- surge or no surge -- the UnitedStates has already lost. That's the grim consensus of a panel of expertsassembled by Rolling Stone to assess the future of Iraq. "Even if we had amillion men to go in, it's too late now," says retired four-star Gen. TonyMcPeak, who served on the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War. "HumptyDumpty can't be put back together again."

But geneticists who have tested DNA throughout the British Isles are edgingtoward a different conclusion. Many are struck by the overall geneticsimilarities, leading some to claim that both Britain and Ireland have beeninhabited for thousands of years by a single people that have remained in themajority, with only minor additions from later invaders like Celts, Romans,Angles , Saxons, Vikings and Normans.

Sweaterman and I had talked about starting a chapter of Drinking Liberally in Flagstaff (our home town, motto: "poverty with a view"), but it appears that someone (named Andy Stevenson) has started one. Guess where I'll be tomorrow?

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: The right-wing attack machine is going to throw everything they can at any Democratic candidate. Even if they have to make shit up. Today's target: BarackObama, who apparently owned some stock and lost some money on it. Scandalous, right?http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070307/ap_on_el_pr/obama_investments

"Obama owned stock in two companies which he did nothing to help — aninvestment that lost him $13,000," Burton said in a statement Wednesday. "It'sapparent that his dealings were completely above board and his decisions wereproactively made in the interest of avoiding the potential for conflict."

This is only the beginning.

Added:

In one eight day stretch in 1988, Obama was cited seven times for parking violations and was fined $45. Thirteen of the 17 violations occurred within one month in 1988.

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

What I do for"frogskin", (a penobscot/iroquois term, betraying their shock at being rudely introduced to the insanity of Western currency) doesn't really matter. Okay, well I transmogrify various carcasses into delightful sandwiches. For frogskin. But I like to read the local paper during morning smoke-breaks. One thing I learned today in today's local paper was, quite recently, USA soldiers, a few of 'em, were ambushed and mutilated by some embittered chap in Afghanistan. So our militia, not welcome there in the first place, became quite upset, and terrifically irrational, - thus spraying lethal bullets oer an entire Afghani villlage. Soldiers representing our country panicked and lost their shit, and slew innocent persons. Our troops are not trained in Arabic, Urdu or Pashtu. Should be, in my opinion... Anyway, of course that's a gloomy thing to read on the front page of a newspaper on yer first coffee-break of a long working day,. But the next page talked about the Boston Massacre, of 1770. Happened the same day. Get it? Okay maybe not- how to put it...!- some colonial "insurgent" in 1770's Boston, tossed a rock at an occupying, unwelcome militia. The red-coats became quite upset, and terrifically irrational... IRAQTIONAL All about frogskin. Get it now, y'all? In'shAllah?

I've been interested in alternative energy since I was in my teens, and that interest has grown with the awareness of global warming. I see so many potential steps that can be taken toward addressing the problem. But the easiest, cheapest step is simple increasing efficiency. So my head nearly exploded when I read this article:http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030507P.shtml

(snip)Analysts at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory calculated that the misseddeadlines for just four of the more popular appliances would ultimately costconsumers at least $28 billion in forgone energy savings - equivalent to theannual primary energy consumption of about 20 million households.

This isn't rocket science or super-duper new technology. This is easilyachieved with equipment already on the market. It's not politicallydifficult (as opposed to raising CAFE standards for automobiles), so wherethe hell is the accountability? Where the hell is the enforcement?

Monday, March 5, 2007

I posted earlier on the situation (see "This is Appalling"), but the whole horrid story keeps expanding. Paul Krugman (behind the NY Times pay wall) nails one of the core reasons that the situation deteriorated:

Yet even now it's not clear whether the public will be told the full story,which is that the horrors of Walter Reed's outpatient unit are noaberration. For all its cries of "support the troops," the Bushadministration has treated veterans' medical care the same way it treatseverything else: nickel-and-diming the needy, protecting the incompetent andprivatizing everything it can. But as with FEMA, the Bush administration has doneall it can to undermine that achievement. And the Walter Reed scandal isanother Hurricane Katrina: the moment when the administration'smisgovernment became obvious to everyone.We know from Hurricane Katrinapostmortems that one of the factors degrading FEMA's effectiveness was theBush administration's relentless push to outsource and privatize disastermanagement, which demoralized government employees and drove away many ofthe agency's most experienced professionals. Itappears that the same thing has been happening to veterans' care.

While some thing work well under private management, there is a reason why we have a government. The care of our soldiers shouldn't be based on profitability. Responding to disasters shouldn't be based on "the bottom line".

Historically, societies form governments to collectively address the greater needs of said society. After all, the average disaster doesn't ask how everybody will pay for it.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department said Monday that Republican Sen. PeteDomenici called Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his deputy four timestocomplain about a U.S. attorney who claims he was fired for not rushing acorruption probe

This could get interesting, as Republicans no longer have the majority that made them immune to investigations. Sen. Domenici has always had questionable ethics, but the Bush justice department has not cared to pursue members of their own party. Watch for fallout over the next few weeks.